Raskin Explains New Poetry Book on "Places"
The Sonoma County Book Festival presents Erik Davis in conversation with Jonah Raskin, chair of the Communication Studies Department, from 3-5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 3 at the Sonoma County Museum, 425 Seventh Street, Santa Rosa. The event is free and open to the public. Raskin's most recent book, Public Spaces, Private Places: New Poems, is a collection of poems that explore places, including Santa Rosa, New York, San Francisco and Hanoi, as well as interior and emotional landscapes.
Davis, a San Francisco-based writer, culture critic, and independent scholar, teaches at U. C. Davis. He is the author of TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information. In his new book The Visionary State:A Journey Through California's Spiritual Landscape, he connects history and religion, place and creed, telling the full story of California consciousness. In writing this book, Davis traveled throughout California, which he calls "a laboratory of the spirit, a visionary playground." Attendees may purchase Davis' book and will receive a complimentary copy of Raskin’s Natives, Newcomers, Exiles, Fugitives. The Web site at www.socobookfest.org offers more information.
Artist, Cosmologists, Archimedes in Free Public Lectures Beginning February
An internationally renowned artist and four cosmologists are among the speakers scheduled for the free public lecture series, "What Physicists Do," this spring on campus. Lectures are on Mondays at 4 p.m. from Feb. 5 through May 7 in Darwin 103. Coffee and cookies will be served in the Darwin lobby at 3:30 p.m.
The series opens Feb. 5 with University of Colorado physicist Chris Greene describing "How Atoms Dance and Join Together in the Ultracold." Other presentations include a description of using the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center to x-ray an ancient parchment to uncover writings by the ancient Greek scientist Archimedes and talks on ultrafast lasers, spintronics, and dilute quantum gases. Other visiting scientists describe energy efficiency in appliances, an extremely efficient new type of particle accelerator, and the behavior of small dust particles in space.
The artist is MacArthur Fellow Ned Kahn of Sebastopol, whose sculptures include interactive science projects on display on several continents. He will speak on "Turbulent Fields" on April 30. The cosmologists are UC Davis astronomer Adam Stanford, University of San Francisco astronomer Aparna Venkatesan, Stanford University astrophysicist Sarah Church, and University of Chicago physicist Andrey Kravtsov. They will discuss obervations of the earliest stars and galaxies from the earth and space, observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation from the South Pole, and computer simulations of the formation of large-scale structures in the early Universe.
This is the 73rd semester for the series of public lectures. The series organizer, Professor Joe Tenn, is grateful to the donors who make it possible. For a free poster describing all twelve lectures, visit http://phys-astro.sonoma.edu/wpd/, send e-mail to phys.astro@sonoma.edu or phone 4-2119.